The Unsheathed Sword
by Oenanthe
Summary: Voldemort's dying curse thrusts Harry back in time, to the start of his fourth year. Faced with the daunting prospect of fighting the war all over again, he must strike a balance between changing the future for the better and ruining it with one misstep.
1. Everything Old

Summary: Defeating Voldemort proves to be only the beginning when the dying wizard's curse thrusts Harry back through time, to the start of his fourth year. Faced with the daunting prospect of fighting the war all over again, Harry must strike a balance between changing the future for the better and losing it all with one single misstep.

_Disclaimer: The characters and world of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling. No profit is being made by the author of this fanfic._

Author Note: Because what the world really needs is another Harry-goes-back-to-his-younger-self story... Some parts from GoF paraphrased in this chapter. The story takes into account concepts from Deathly Hallows, such as the locations and identities of the Horcuxes, but assumes a different seventh year occurred.

**The Unsheathed Sword**

_Chapter One: Everything Old..._

Of all the ways Harry Potter had expected Voldemort's death to ultimately play out, he would have ample time to reflect later, it had to have ranked close to the very bottom. Not the manner of his death--destroying the Horcruxes had always been a given, as was carrying out the actual deed, using the killing curse or any other lethal means at his disposal.

The sword of Godric Gryffindor shone red with blood as he pulled it out of the chest of the dark wizard who had ruined so many lives and come so close to destroying everything Harry cared about. He felt something like peace as he watched the hate-filled eyes of his enemy begin to lose focus.

_Just die,_ he thought at the bloody form at his feet. The sounds of battle raged around him; the Death Eaters had not conceded victory yet, and desperation drove them now. The wizarding world had long ago lost its patience for feeble claims of forced servitude through the Imperius Curse. If anything, the ministry erred in the other extreme now. It was a harder world than that of five years ago, when Fudge had denied to the world that the Dark Lord could possibly be back.

Harry caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eye and distractedly erected a shield to absorb the curse, following through with an impatient blasting spell that sent the Death Eater who had fired the curse flying through the air. He impacted the ground in a flail of limbs and went still.

"Harry Potter."

Startled, he looked down. A glimmer of awareness had returned to Voldemort's eyes. His hand tightened around the sword, prepared to strike another blow if it proved necessary. Take no joy in death, Dumbledore had cautioned him years ago, but he was dead now and it had been a very long war.

The war. It had been an unforgiving crucible, melting them all to fit the mould of battle. Harry had fought for many things; in the early years, his life. Later, the lives of his friends, and then for the future of the wizarding world. That future was what drove him now; it was too late for his generation. They would be haunted by the spectres of this war for the rest of their lives; he had seen it in Remus and Sirius, his parents' generation. But the next generation of children at Hogwarts would not live in fear of attacks, of losing their family, and they would not grow up to be him.

A rasping laughter rose from the ground, accompanied by a sucking sound that Harry knew meant his stab had punctured one of Voldemort's lungs. The laughter caught him off guard, made him uneasy, especially since it must have been exceptionally painful. He stared at his fallen enemy, refusing to appear anything but unruffled.

"It's never over, Harry," Voldemort wheezed. A hand snaked out, lightning-quick, to grab the hem of Harry's mud-stained robes, and he laughed again, that man who had feared death enough to destroy his own soul in order to escape it. The hairs on the back of Harry's neck rose. There was a note of triumph in the eerie laughter that shouldn't be there, had they _missed_ one of the...? "Here, my final gift to you. _Reverte ad initium!_"

There was no curse-light to dodge, or rather, it was so vast that he could not have dodged it had he tried. The world around him shuddered for a moment and began to grow grey as colour leeched out of it. Noise dropped away, until it was silent except for that horrible laughter, which went on and on--

His tight leash on his anger snapped, and his calm abandoned him. He stabbed again violently, and again, and one last time before the grey overtook him entirely, determined to ensure that Voldemort was dead if this curse somehow destroyed him too. The sword heated in his hand, and the grey turned abruptly to a blinding white that pressed in on him from all sides, building to an unbearable pressure that denied him the breath to even scream.

_He's dead,_ Harry had time to think to himself. The laughter that echoed around him was entirely in his head. Voldemort was dead at last, and his friends even now must be finishing the last of the Death Eaters. They had won, even if his own life was over now. He'd resigned himself to such a fate long ago, and he would not be afraid--

x x x x

Harry woke to a burning in his scar that made him clap a hand to his forehead. He blinked, surprise at waking up at all surpassing, for a moment, his horror to feel the tell-tale sign of Voldemort's continued survival. It was dark around him, and he wondered wildly for a moment if he had been taken to St Mungo's.

He waited until his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and the second shock came: the room was blurry. Had something happened to his eyes? He'd had them magically corrected years ago, after one too many Death Eaters had summoned them or shattered them in an attempt to blind him, so why would--?

Despite the dark and the blurriness, the room was horribly familiar. He squinted, and the third shock swam into focus. What in Merlin's name was he doing back at number four, Privet Drive? He had left the protection of his relatives directly after his sixth year. Panic growing, he struggled into a sitting position. By chance, his roving hands fell upon a pair of glasses, set neatly on the bedside table. Slipping them on, he took a deep breath, and tried to figure out just what was going on.

His scar had hurt, and that had to mean... He clamped down tightly on his rising fear and horror. This was not the time for panic. It had to mean that Voldemort had somehow survived, which must mean they had missed a Horcrux. The ministry would have pulled back--but then why was he at the Dursleys?

A sobering thought occurred to him. Perhaps they hadn't simply retreated. Perhaps Voldemort's forces had somehow _won_, and the ministry's remaining wizards had been forced into hiding. Privet Drive had been safe for him once, perhaps they had thought...

What? What had they thought, to place him here? How had they persuaded the Dursleys to agree, for that matter? He got to his feet, rubbing his face. His hand froze, and a sudden, terrible suspicion gripped him. _Reverte ad initium_. He had never been a master of Latin, but he could get by, and translating roughly, that meant--

_Return to the beginning._ He raced over to his wardrobe, flung it open, and peered into the mirror inside of the door. It was still his face, but soft with the lingering traces of childhood, eyes just slightly too large for the face they had yet to grow into. He clutched at his arm, which was scrawny, nearly bony, from poor nutrition. His mouth tightened; he had spent years reversing the damage his relatives had done to his growth.

He moved his hand away from the scar, pulling the hair back to study the lightning bolt shape in the mirror. It still stung, though it didn't look irritated.

Voldemort. He lowered his hand, feeling it clench into a fist, and he had to suppress the urge to throw it at the mirror. Instead, he stepped back and sat heavily on the bed. Ten years. That was how long he had been fighting, since his very first year at Hogwarts, his first encounter with the evil that would consume his childhood and his life.

Ten bloody years, and just when it seemed that it was over and he could finally rest-- He breathed deeply, trying to banish the feeling of anguished frustration that welled up in his chest. It was _over_, they had _won_. Voldemort was dead, even if the bastard had died laughing at him.

Damn it, hadn't he given enough to that bloody prophecy? He didn't think he could fight this war a second time. Not if it meant watching the people he loved die all over again, suffering through the losses again: Sirius, Dumbledore, Remus-- His thoughts came to an abrupt halt, and his breath caught.

They didn't have to die, he thought with a rising euphoria that left him slightly dazed. He knew how it would happen for each of them; he could prevent--

No. The reality of the situation jerked him out of those fantasies. He needed to be cold about this.

If he made any significant changes, the future they had won through so much sacrifice could be endangered. Voldemort _had_ been defeated, he was certain of it, never mind the laughter. But surely that wasn't the only path that led to victory; surely, there was some way he could do things better, prevent those needless deaths.

Perhaps he understood Voldemort's final laughter better now. This was both gift and curse; he would be trapped between the desire to protect the people he cared about and to preserve the certain victory he had achieved in that last battle.

Five years ago, even three, that would not have been a question. Friends would come first, and damn the rest. But if, for every friend he saved, he consigned one hundred innocents to death...

He would simply have to do better this time. He _would_ have the best of both worlds. He had the knowledge, the foresight, and the skills to handle Voldemort. If he chose the right moment to break with his past, once he was absolutely certain he could kill Voldemort, then it shouldn't matter what he changed after that.

But before he decided anything else, he needed to learn just how far back he had gone. He rummaged through the trunk at the foot of his bed, which contained his spellbooks from previous years at Hogwarts. The books did not go beyond third year.

Fourth year. That puzzled him. _Reverte ad initium_--but fourth year was hardly the beginning for him. First year would make far more sense or even that Halloween night when Voldemort had fulfilled the first part of the prophecy; then again, it was at the end of the fourth year, in the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, that Cedric Diggory would die and Voldemort would be reborn, from his blood.

He could stop Voldemort from rising as early as the end of the year--but should he?

He frowned. Dumbledore had explained to him that Voldemort's use of his blood in the resurrection ritual at Little Hangleton had rendered Harry immune to any attempt by Voldemort to cast the killing curse on him. He risked losing such a protection if he ruined the ritual, either by not going to the graveyard at all or disrupting it himself. Unfortunately, neither option guaranteed Voldemort's defeat. There were seven Horcruxes--well, six, with the diary destroyed--left, and he could simply try again in the second case, or use another victim in the first.

What did he know about the Horcruxes? He went through the list, long since memorised. The diary, destroyed. The ring, still at the Gaunts'. Ravenclaw's diadem, safe in Hogwarts and readily accessible. Hufflepuff's cup, locked inside the Lestrange vault. Slytherin's locket, which should still be in Grimmauld Place. Nagini. Himself.

His face darkened. The process they had used to destroy the Horcrux within him had come close to killing him with it, and had, in fact, required him to be dead for a time. He didn't look forward to going through that process again, particularly since he would need skilled, wholly trustworthy help for that.

No. Not unless he had destroyed all of the Horcruxes would he disrupt the ritual. Letting anyone else be Voldemort's victim went against his every instinct, and it was not worth giving up that protection against the killing curse. And he wouldn't be able to destroy all of the soul shards without help; the Trace remained on him, the Order's headquarters remained locked under the Fidelius, the Lestrange vault would be all but impossible to reach without a full-on assault...

The question was--who could he trust? And more sobering still: who would believe him?

Save those questions for tomorrow, he told himself. His body may be rested, but his mind had just come from a long battle. He ignored the tightness in his chest that built as he remembered that one, aching moment of peace he had felt, of knowing it was all over and the nightmare was over--only to wake up, to begin it anew.

He was a soldier. He would take rest where he could find it, and fight when he must.

x x x x

Harry woke the next morning with the frustrating feeling that he had forgotten something, and he remembered what it was as he sat down to breakfast with the Dursleys. His scar had hurt last night--he must have woken right after his first encounter with his mental link with Voldemort, the dream where he had watched an old man die. He'd written to Sirius the first time, embarrassed to express unease over a mere dream but anxious enough about his scar hurting to mention that.

If he remembered correctly, that was what had prompted Sirius to come north. He was reluctant to begin mucking up the timeline this early, particularly when the consequences of Sirius _not_ coming were so vague, so he resolved to jot a quick note later. Of course, now that he knew what day it was, he knew what would happen next.

Indeed, after the breakfast with measly slices of grapefruit--he reminded himself that he'd had plenty of supplemental food hidden away in his room that he could enjoy later--his uncle confronted him with the stamp-plastered envelope containing the Weasleys' invitation to see the Quidditch World Cup with them.

His memory of the event was mixed; the game had been the first time he'd really been surrounded by his world, other wizards and witches, in something other than a school environment. He supposed that techinically Diagon Alley was truly the first time, but it had been new and puzzling and more than a little overwhelming then, while Quidditch he had known well enough to enjoy the whole experience.

The aftermath had not been as pleasant.

Unable to recall how he had responded to the letter the first time, he went with a neutral response. "Looks like you'll be rid of me for the rest of summer, then."

His uncle's red-faced anger deflated slightly, perhaps derailed by his bluntness. "Er. That's--I've said nothing of the sort. What is this _Quidditch_ rubbish?"

"Wizarding sport," Harry said, feeling oddly relaxed to see Vernon's face purple at the first word. This was something he knew, could deal with. "Played on brooms--"

"Fine, fine! I'll thank you not to speak anyone of that vile, unnatural nonsense under my roof!" Vernon rubbed at his moustache, clearly reluctant to concede when there was a risk of Harry actually experiencing happiness. His eyes dropped down to the bottom of the letter. "What's that mean, 'the normal way'?"

Harry gauged the level of his uncle's temper before replying. It would be inconvenient to send him flying into a rage, enjoyable though it might be to watch. He'd considered various forms of mild revenge to take upon his relatives over the years, but each time, he dismissed the ideas as unproductive. A part of him would always hate the Dursleys for doing their best to crush his spirit, near-starving him, locking him up, and using him as a house-elf, but in a way, he pitied them too, for being so terrified of a small child.

"She means owl post," he said finally.

His uncle twitched, but apparently "owl" was just close enough to the line separating normal words from unacceptable, freakish ones that he didn't blow up. "And this Weasley woman, she knows that if you go, we'll not be responsible for feeding you, or paying--"

Irritation ripped through him at this fresh reminder of his relatives' seemingly boundless capacity for pettiness. "She knows."

"Well, then." Vernon seemed stuck, unable to bring himself to actually speak the--metaphorically speaking--magic words that would allow him to go.

"Thank you, Uncle Vernon," Harry said, finding the words of gratitude perhaps equally hard, but he'd learnt long ago that a conflict avoided was one extra conflict he'd have energy for later. Conservation of battle-readiness, he thought with mild amusement.

He passed Dudley in the hall as he went up to his room, ignoring the hostile glance sent his way. He entered his room to a blur of feathers, zipping round the room--Pig. He took the dropped letter and read it, feeling an odd disconnect as Ron's enthusiasm buffeted him; like what he read was not in real time, but rather a long-delayed echo--distinguishable but slightly hollow.

He didn't belong. It was a fresh stab that he tried to shrug away, succeeding only partially. Finally, he sat down to pen his reply to Ron and his letter to Sirius. Once Pig had calmed enough to accept the letter--for a given value of "calm"--he tied it to the excitable owl's leg. So much exuberance, from both Ron and his owl, was emotionally draining.

His letter to Sirius had been more difficult. He couldn't ignore his past, the fact that, in a way, he was writing to a dead man. He hoped it hadn't coloured his writing, but he had to accept that the actions he would have taken before would now pass through the filter of his experiences.

His third letter, to Dumbledore, was blank. He'd stared at the blank sheet of parchment for several minutes, at a loss what to write and uncertain _if_ he should write anything at all. What could he say? "Dear Dumbledore, this may sound crazy, but I'm from six years in the future"? Time travel did exist, as their adventure during third year with Hermione's Time-Turner had demonstrated in vivid detail.

But this wasn't time travel. If it was, he wouldn't be fourteen years old again. So what _had_ Voldemort done? Considering what Dumbledore already knew about the Horcrux he carried within him, his first guess could easily be that the piece of Voldemort's soul had possessed him, as the shade of Tom Riddle had Ginny. Hell, even if he said nothing at all, his altered behaviour might lead the headmaster to the same conclusion.

And if Dumbledore did believe him, Harry knew he would still want to protect him, like his clumsy attempts during his fifth year--but that hadn't worked the first time round. Same with Sirius. All of the adults would have trouble accepting that he was a grown wizard, and he didn't even want to consider what Fudge's ministry would do if they found out.

Information shared was risk multiplied. That was one fact that had been drilled into them by betrayal after betrayal--unintentional and not.

Destroy the Horcruxes he could get to, he thought as he attached his second letter to Hedwig, who hooted softly at his distracted manner. That was his first step; everything except Hufflepuff's cup was accessible, within reason. He could use the last task to get rid of Nagini. That would leave himself and the cup, and the events of fifth year hopefully enough intact that he could rely upon the attack at the Department of Mysteries for a final battle. By then, he could probably trust Dumbledore to help him gain access the cup, and repeat the process required for the removal of the Horcrux within him.

He would keep the truth to himself until doing so did more harm than good. A two year timetable for Voldemort's defeat was not shabby, and would finish long before the worst of the deaths began. For once, he would be the one shielding everyone else.

The memory of his enemy's laughter echoed once more in Harry's head, and he gritted his teeth as he opened the window for Hedwig. _Go on and laugh, you bastard, _he thought furiously._ I killed you once, and I'll kill you again, and faster this time. _


	2. Talking to Ghosts

Summary: Defeating Voldemort proves to be only the beginning when the dying wizard's curse thrusts Harry back through time, to the start of his fourth year. Faced with the daunting prospect of fighting the war all over again, Harry must strike a balance between changing the future for the better and losing it all with one single misstep.

_Disclaimer: The characters and world of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling. No profit is being made by the author of this fanfic._

Story Notes: Because what the world really needs is another Harry-goes-back-to-his-younger-self story... Some parts from GoF paraphrased in this chapter. The story takes into account concepts from Deathly Hallows, such as the locations and identities of the Horcuxes, but assumes a different seventh year occurred.

On shipping: GoF contained little to no romance, and the same holds for this story, which will be gen.

AN: Sorry for the delay between the first chapter and this. Classes have been brutal this semester, but hopefully they will stabilise by the middle of the term.

**The Unsheathed Sword**

_Chapter Two: Talking to Ghosts_

Packing his trunk was an exercise in nostalgia, made all the stranger by the fact that he was currently living the very past his thoughts lingered upon. It also provided him with a belated surprise: Gryffindor's sword had followed him back. He had come perilously close to losing a foot before he spotted the blade lying on the floor at the side of his bed. It was a marvel he hadn't cut himself the previous night.

In stark contrast to the morning's excitement, the remainder of the day passed in a numbing boredom. After so many years spent in a heightened state of battle-readiness, the lack of anything productive to do left him feeling restless and vaguely guilty. The Dursleys, collective nerves strung taut in anticipation of the Weasleys' arrival tomorrow--five o'clock, he'd warned them--had no housework assignments for him.

Harry ended up revising his summer assignments, chagrined at the number of mistakes he found, including an embarrassing tendency to spell "argument" with an extra e. By the time he finished, the essays were so full of strike-outs and cramped scribbles in the margin that he took out some blank parchment and rewrote all of them with the revisions, hoping that the subtle changes in his handwriting would go unnoticed.

A pounding at the door alerted him to the time, and he put down his quill. He shook out his cramped hand, which was unaccustomed to so much writing, and slipped downstairs for dinner. It was a quiet, tense affair, and the meagre portions were barely worth the strained silence. He escaped gladly back to his room immediately afterwards.

Piece of birthday cake in hand, he attacked his Potions text. His skills with Defence, Charms, and Transfiguration were beyond Auror-level, courtesy of Kingsley Shacklebolt, Mad-Eye Moody, and, both directly and indirectly, Voldemort himself. Potions on the other hand, along with Herbology, had been neglected in favour of focusing on more combat-appropriate magic. If nothing else, he could extend his knowledge in those two subjects this year.

He looked up from the dry text periodically to glance at the sword, which lay across the end of his bed, rubies glittering in the light. It was a relief to have the one weapon he knew without a doubt would destroy a Horcrux. Yet at the same time, he had to wonder why it had made the journey with him, and if that meant there were now two swords of Godric Gryffindor. He could verify his unlikely story that way, if it came to that, but he would need to hide it well to prevent people from asking all sorts of difficult questions until then.

The sounds of his relatives retiring for the night broke him out of his musings, and, after wrapping the sword carefully in one of the oversized shirts he had inherited from Dudley, he placed it in the trunk and closed it up. It took him a long time to fall asleep, nerves humming with unspent energy and thoughts whirring in his mind, but eventually he fell into the peaceful darkness of a deep sleep.

He woke the next day slightly disoriented until he remembered where he was, and why. The angle of the sunlight streaming through his window informed him that he'd overslept. Snatching his glasses from the bedside table and slipping them on, he dressed quickly and lugged his heavy trunk down the stairs.

A feather-light charm would be nice, Harry thought sourly when the trunk lost traction and yanked him down several steps, wrenching his wrist quite painfully. He'd almost slipped twice since his arrival, preparing a spell only to recall, mid-incantation, that he was once more under the Trace.

"These people," his uncle growled from the bottom of the stairs, not bothering to help him with the last few steps. "They'd better come dressed like normal folk."

"Probably," he hedged. If he recalled correctly, they wouldn't. He frowned. They also were going to--bollocks! "The fireplace," he said, grimacing at the memory. "They're going to come through it."

Vernon pinned him with a suspicious glare, as though he thought--and hoped--that Harry was making a very unamusing joke. "Think you're funny, do you?"

"It's how wiz--" He broke off as a vein in his uncle's forehead bulged dangerously. "How my kind travels. Instead of by broo--by flight."

"I won't have it!" his uncle sputtered. "You send them one of those--you tell them to come here the normal way, or not come at all."

"I've sent my owl away, and the Weasleys don't have a telephone. They'll be coming through the fireplace at five o'clock, whether you want them to or not. And don't," he cautioned, seeing the speculative glint in his uncle's eye, "think that boarding it up even more than you already have will keep them out. It'll make things worse. Then again, if you really want half the living room to be destroyed..." He shrugged.

It was a significant embellishment of what had actually happened, but it worked. "Fine! But mark my words, boy: if there's one speck of ash on the carpet, these _Weasleys_ will pay to have it cleaned."

"That's not necessary," Harry said, patience finally worn thin. "I'm sure my godfather would be perfectly willing to take care of that. You won't mind if I remove the boards in the meantime?"

It had been a long time since he had thought about Sirius, but the house had taken him back to those days when he'd lived for the thought that his godfather might come and rescue him from his horrible summers. He had used Sirius' name like a weapon back then too. It shouldn't ache to do so now; he had been dead for a long time.

Still, it worked. Vernon paled as expected at the mention of his "murderous" godfather. He shook one thick finger at Harry, mouth working furiously, but no sound escaped. Finally, he gave a grunt that might have been charitably taken as consent and stormed out of the room, muttering darkly about the unnaturalness and fireplaces.

"Santa's one of ours, too," Harry couldn't resist calling to his retreating back, "in case you were wondering."

He amused himself as he worked to remove the boards from the entrance to the fireplace by imagining the Dursleys' probable reaction to his remark, from banning Christmas altogether to suspecting every neighbour who celebrated it to be a wizard. The first time around, he'd been careful with his words, afraid to jeopardise his trip to the World Cup. But years of facing the constant threat of death or capture had been enough to put their treatment of him into perspective--they hardly qualified as more than a mild nuisance anymore.

It was four o'clock by the time he pried the last board loose. Sweaty, with blood seeping from a shallow gouge from when the hammer had slipped and the back end clipped the side of his hand, he used the hour remaining before the Weasleys arrived to take a quick shower, slap a bandage over the wound, and grab a change of clothes from his trunk.

Tensions in the living room were running high when he entered and only grew as five o'clock passed without event. He was surprised his relatives dared wait in the same room as the fireplace. An odd display of pride and grim bravery, he supposed, along with a refusal to be intimidated in their own home.

At about a quarter five, the fireplace roared to life. His aunt and uncle scooted back in their seats, and Dudley's hands inched behind to cover his bottom. The fire flared up for a second, and Mr Weasley came staggering out. His eyes lit upon Harry and he smiled warmly.

"Harry!" Brushing his robes off, he stepped away from the fireplace and strode over to Vernon and Petunia. He offered a slightly soot-streaked hand, excitement at being in a Muggle home palpable. "You must be Harry's aunt and uncle! We've, erm, heard so much about you."

They stared at his outstretched hand, but made no move to take it. The flames rose again, and Fred popped out, followed closely by George. They looked so young that Harry could only stare, something catching in his chest.

The twins had nearly single-handedly provided the war effort with its most effective magical weapons, turning their love of pranks into a frighteningly intense devotion to sow as much destruction and chaos in Voldemort's ranks as possible. Charlie's death, and Ginny's capture and subsequent torture had provided the catalyst for that change, and Harry didn't know what would have become of them after Voldemort's defeat, didn't know whether they _could_ have returned to producing innocent joke merchandise after spending so long in the grim mindset of war.

There was no trace of that grief-powered darkness in them now, and Harry was filled with a renewed resolve to ensure that it never came to that again.

"'Lo there, Harry!" Fred said, closing the distance between them to pump his arm vigorously. "Excellent to see you again."

George took his other hand. "Absolutely smashing."

Harry smiled, unable to dredge up the slightest twinge of irritation at their deliberately over-enthusiastic greeting, though his arms, aching from the afternoon's labours, felt ready to fall off. "It's great to see you too. Trunk's by the couch."

"What, no tour?" George said, and Harry couldn't tell if the disappointment was feigned or not. He turned to Dudley, who sat nearly motionless on the couch, as though hoping that by holding still enough, everyone would forget about him. His grin took on a distinctly predatory edge. "You'll be Dudley, then."

Dudley gave a small squeak.

The fire flared one last time, and deposited Ron in the living room. Harry stifled the urge to laugh and grinned at Ron instead, because while the twins had _seemed_ young, they had nearly reached the end of their growth and weren't too different, minus a few scars, from the twins he knew. Ron, on the other hand, was awkward and gangly with the onset of puberty, and though Harry knew suffered from the same awkwardness himself, it was different to see it in someone he'd spent time with nearly every day.

"Ron, you're nearest the fire; why don't you take Harry's luggage through," Mr Weasley said, having long since lowered his hand. He was now eyeing the television with a hungry look, and he returned his attention to Harry's uncle with what seemed a heroic effort. "I find Muggle technology fascinating--ingenious, even! Ekeltricity, batteries...so many clever ways you Muggles have found to power your gadgets!"

George dragged the trunk over to Ron, who rolled his eyes and shrugged apologetically at Harry before disappearing through the fire again.

"Go on, Harry," Fred said with an exceptionally innocent smile. "You next. We'll follow you through and--oh!" A bag of sweets fell from his pocket, sending large, wrapped toffees scattering all over the carpet.

Remembering what had happened last time, Harry hurried to his aid in picking them up. He thought he'd caught all the outlying pieces, but just as he prepared to step into the green flames, he heard a gagging sound from behind him and turned around with a half-muttered oath.

Dudley. His tongue was swelling to gross proportions and his eyes were wide with panic as he struggled to breathe. Petunia let out a shrill scream and raced over to him, trying, as she had the first time, to pull his tongue out while Vernon turned red and then pale, looking ready to explode into violence against Mr Weasley. Only the wand he held as he stammered apologies to Harry's uncle protected him.

Harry could remember thinking the entire situation hilarious the first time, but he'd seen enough Muggle torture through his connection to Voldemort since then that Muggle-baiting no longer seemed even mildly amusing. He'd half-raised his wand before remembering that he must have the bloody Trace upon him--but, a more cold-blooded part of him remarked, this could be an excellent opportunity to test that theory. The Ministry had been willing to forgive him for blowing up his aunt, and Fudge didn't have reason to act against him yet, so if the magic was detected, all he would probably get was another friendly reprimand.

"_Descresio_," he said, wand outstretched and aimed at Dudley.

Petunia's eyes widened in fear, but his cousin's tongue slowly shrank until it was its normal size again. A terrible quiet fell, broken only by Dudley's dying whimpers. Fred and George looked disappointed, and Mr Weasley lowered his own wand, though he frowned.

"Fred, George," he snapped with a rare anger. "Go. Harry--" He paused, frown deepening. "The Ministry will have recorded that. We'll likely be hearing from them back at the house. Well, nothing we can do about that now."

George disappeared through the green flames, and Fred followed swiftly after him, the Dursleys' baleful stares upon them all the while. His uncle's fists clenched and unclenched a few times, and Petunia led a sobbing Dudley out of the room.

"I'm very sorry, Mr Dursley," Mr Weasley said, to his uncle's apparent disbelief. "That was very irresponsible...the boys will be--"

Harry could spot the warning signs. His uncle was about to explode, and he would rather not see Mr Weasley laid flat, so he took his arm and pulled him back to the fireplace. "We'll be going now."

He nodded at Mr Weasley to go first, which he did with a faintly puzzled look. Harry sighed as he left, and met his uncle's eyes. There was no appreciation there for what he had done, and he didn't think he could rightly blame Vernon for that. All magic had ever done was hurt or frighten them.

Harry turned away and faced the green flames. "Goodbye."

x x x x

The twins were being treated to a thorough dressing-down when he arrived at the Burrow, from their father for once, and Ron watched from the sidelines, looking relieved to have escaped reprimand. Bill and Charlie sat at the table, watching with a mix of confusion and amusement.

Harry caught a startled breath when his eyes fell upon Charlie, but he quickly covered it up with a smile he hoped looked nervous rather than weak. He had not been there when Charlie died, but his absence had left a raw wound in the Weasley family, one that had only torn wider half a year later when Ginny was abducted. He wondered if he would ever get used to seeing ghosts, and talking with them.

Charlie greeted him first, and Harry accidentally called him by name before remembering that they had yet to be formally introduced. Fortunately, he either didn't notice or assumed that Ron must have described them to him at one point. Bill shook his hand next, and Harry's smile stabilised. Bill's wedding had been one of the few bright spots in a long, dark future. And he had lost track of the number of times Bill's curse-breaking skills had come in useful.

After the introductions, Harry joined Ron, but found himself at a loss for anything to say to his oldest friend. It was like trying to pick up the threads of a conversation left dangling for over six years, though of course it didn't feel that way to Ron. He would have to accept that there was no way to remember everything he had said and done, and rigidly trying to hold the future constant until the end of the year was an invitation to madness.

Ron finally rescued him. "I don't think I've ever seen Dad so annoyed. Did they work?"

That memory made his smile disappear. "The toffees?" Harry asked, voice cooling when his friend nodded. "They worked wonderfully, yes. They terrified my relatives and did a bang-up job ensuring that they'll hate magic even more the next time I visit. Brilliant plan."

Ron coloured. "Oh. I guess I never really about that. Sorry, it's just...they're so nasty to you, so we thought--"

"No, never mind," Harry interrupted. He sighed inwardly. Ron _was_ just fourteen, and he'd thought it funny at that age too, so he could hardly judge. _Fifteen and an idiot.._.he understood Sirius and his father much better now. "It's all right. Just--" Leave the Muggle baiting to the Death Eaters, but he couldn't say that. "It's fine."

"Right." Ron looked relieved rather than suspicious. "So, okay summer otherwise?"

Mrs Weasley arrived before he could answer, flanked by Hermione and Ginny, and for the second time in a space of five minutes, Harry's thoughts froze. He stared at Ginny, who dropped her eyes, a shy smile on her lips.

It hurt to see her smile. The Ginny who had been rescued by the Order had been a pale, grim-faced witch who, forever after, could only look blank or wary. Not frightened--she hadn't been broken like that, but it was as if those weeks of captivity had drained every last happiness out of her, only worse than any Dementor, because they never returned after that.

He remembered watching Mrs Weasley trying to coax some spark of the old Ginny out of her in the months afterward, knitting her something silly, or cooking her favourite meal. To no avail; like the twins, all that Ginny had wanted after that was to kill any Death Eater she could find. It wasn't even like Fred and George's angry revenge; it was something colder and far more desperate than that.

Harry knew all about exorcising one's personal demons. He had never wanted Ginny to.

His fault, ultimately. Voldemort would never have given Ginny a second glance if she hadn't once been the girlfriend of the sodding Boy-Who-Lived. Their decision at the end of sixth year to break it off had come too late. Harry had certainly absorbed Voldemort's lesson that time: don't fall in love.

Love was his greatest strength, Dumbledore had assured him. But Dumbledore had died, and his education in the grim realities of war after that had come solely, second-hand, from Voldemort. The two influences that had shaped his life--such polar opposites, and yet he was as much a product of one as the other. He had wondered, some dark nights in the later years of the war, if Dumbledore had ever been afraid of _him_.

Harry pulled himself out of those morose thoughts, to find that Hermione and Mrs Weasley were staring at him with varying degrees of concern. Ginny, on the other hand, had looked away, a dull flush reddening her cheeks; humiliation, he realised. Not shyness. The way he had looked at her...she must have interpreted it as pity.

It was better that way, he decided. He was not giving Voldemort any more targets this time.

"Harry, dear." Mrs Weasley's hug was especially tight this time, and something so essentially timeless that Harry was able to smile again, faintly. She pulled away, the lines of worry in her forehead relaxing as she saw his smile. "It's wonderful to see you!"

"You too, Mrs Weasley," he said, and if it was with more fervour than the statement merited, then no one seemed to notice.

Mrs Weasley's attention now was focused firmly upon her husband, who had paused, mid-lecture, when she entered the room. "What was it you were going to tell me, Arthur?"

He was rescued by a sudden tapping on the window. An owl was flapping impatiently outside, bearing a letter marked with the Ministry's seal. Casting a suspicious look at her husband, Mrs Weasley walked over to the window to let the owl in.

Hermione took the opportunity to greet him with a quick hug that Harry returned warmly. If there was one person he could count on as a confidant, it was Hermione. Dumbledore, for all his good intentions, might not be able to resist the opportunity to make use of Harry's advance knowledge, and he was too far from Harry still, in age and experience, to be someone that Harry felt comfortable talking to about his doubts and problems.

Hermione had more than proved herself as they sought out the Horcruxes, one by one. Even Moody had come to respect her abilities by the end, when he had originally dismissed her as too soft-hearted to be an effective fighter. It remained true--she wasn't ever comfortable with battle and hurting people--but she always seemed to know the right spell to bring down a set of wards, or counter a curse that could kill a person in a handful of minutes.

And even when he had doubted his own judgment, she had trusted him. Questioned his actions, yes. Challenged his thinking, yes. But no matter what, she had trusted him, something that even Ron, for all his own intense loyalty, had not been able to do.

"Arthur?" Mrs Weasley's voice was sharp as she looked up from the letter she had been reading. "What did those boys do? This is a letter from the Improper Use of Magic Office, and it says--"

"I'm afraid that was my fault," Harry said, frowning. So he _did_ still have the Trace.

"Nonsense," Mr Weasley said, accepting the letter from his wife and reading it through. "I'll write back and tell them that it was my own charm, but you do need to be careful in the future, Harry. According to the letter, this would have been your third offence, and you would have had to go to the office for an informal hearing. Usually, it entails nothing more than explaining to Mafalda or one of her staff why you used under-aged magic, but if you keep it up, you might get yourself into real trouble."

"What _I_ would like to know is what made it necessary for poor Harry to need to use a spell in the first place," Mrs Weasley said, glaring at Fred and George who blinked innocently.

An idea began to form in Harry's head then, and he shook his head. "No, that's okay. It's very nice of you to offer, but I should take responsibility for my own actions." It suddenly occurred to him that Arthur's offer might have also stemmed from a desire to protect his sons from the consequences of their mischief, and he quickly added, "I'll make it clear that the toffees were just an accident."

Ron was staring at him like he'd grown two extra heads, but Hermione, though she looked slightly mystified about the circumstances, nodded with approval.

"Toffees?" Mrs Weasley seized upon the word, seemingly undeterrable.

"If you're certain, Harry," Mr Weasley said, rubbing his chin. He glanced between Mrs Weasley, whose displeasure was becoming increasingly evident, and the twins, who actually looked somewhat contrite now that Harry had got in trouble. "We can schedule the meeting after the Cup. I'm just sorry that it's necessary."

That seemed to be the cue for Mrs Weasley to descend upon her husband and the twins. Bill and Charlie beat a hasty retreat, and Hermione cleared her throat.

"Well," she said brightly, with a you'll-be-telling-me-all-about-this smile, "let's get Harry settled in. Ron, would you like to show him where he'll be sleeping?"

"He knows where my room is," Ron said distractedly, absorbed in watching the escalating argument between his parents and the twins. Hermione's elbow secured his attention, and he rubbed his side with a grimace. "What?"

"Let's _go_," she said pointedly.

"Oh!" Ron cast one final glance behind himself, and then he followed them out of the room.

As they walked up the creaking staircase, Harry tried to organise the chaotic jumble of ideas he had into something resembling a coherent plan. At the Cup, he would have the opportunity to speak with Fudge, he knew, and start working on him. Working on him just how, he wasn't certain yet, but in case the worst happened, he would _not_ be content to let Fudge spread slander about him and Dumbledore for a full year while Voldemort gathered his forces.

But he needed a back-up plan--and a possible way around the Trace. That was where the Improper Use of Magic Office came in. It was in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which also housed the Aurors, who were currently led by Scrimgeour. And although he and Scrimgeour had never really got on, they had come to respect one another. Scrimgeour was competent, and if Harry cultivated a friendly relationship with him, he would have a powerful friend in the Ministry.

One who might be willing to remove the Trace, if he were convinced that Harry needed to be able to use magic to defend himself. And there was, technically, still a dangerous convict on the loose, out to get him. Harry didn't know if he'd be able to stomach using Sirius that way, though he'd done that much with the Dursleys. Somehow, it was different in the magical world.

Whatever he decided upon, he thought as they arrived at Ron's room, it would have to wait. He'd managed to pass first inspection by his friends, but that had been at a distance, in a crowded room full of distractions. Hermione and Ginny turned expectantly towards him, and Ron had a thoughtful expression as he looked at Harry.

Now the real test came.


End file.
